János Áder Inaugurates Monument in Italy
Szöveg: honvedelem.hu / MTI | 2016. május 18. 12:25On Tuesday, 17 May, President of Hungary János Áder and Minister of Defence Dr. István Simicskó inaugurated a monument on the island of Asinara, Italy, in memory and honor of Hungarian soldiers who had fought in the First World War.
At the beginning of the First World War in 1914, the soldiers captured in the Serbian theatre were forced to march 800 kilometers under escort in the Balkans, and then were squeezed into cattle trucks for days before they arrived in Asinara, an island located at the tip of Sardinia. Out of 85,000 prisoners of war, only a few thousand returned home, many of them well after the end of the war. Research shows that the majority of those who died were from Hungary. The captives’ fate had been unknown for decades, until a documentary on the events had its premiere last year, made by Gábor Margittai and Anna Major with the title “Prisoners of War on Donkey Island – Captives’ sufferings in the Great War".
Asinara had been closed to tourists and researchers until 1997, so the remains of the WWI POW camp have survived to the present day. János Áder inaugurated a monument comprising a memorial plaque carved into a rock with Hungarian and Italian inscriptions on it, and a double cross. He said that amidst the horrors of the century of concentration camps, the fate of the victims here faded into the background during the 20th century, although 6,000 soldiers died on average every day in the First World War. The President of Hungary thanked the helpers of the prisoners of war at the time, and also those who do not allow the one-time horrors to be consigned to oblivion these days. The Head of State emphasized that “today, at the inauguration ceremony of the monument to the soldiers who died in the one-time POW camp, we must also remember those resting in unmarked roadside graves along the route of the death march in the Balkans". He also called upon everybody to do their best in order to avoid similar tragedies in the future.
Accompanied by his wife Anita Herczegh, during his two-day official visit the President of Hungary travelled to the town of Stintino to see a historical exhibition on the life and death of Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war. While on Donkey Island, he went to a Hungarian chapel, consecrated 100 years ago, paid tribute to Italian soldiers at their grave, and laid a wreath in the “bone chamber" that holds the mortal remains of 7,000 prisoners of war, including unknown victims.
Photo: Noémi Bruzák (MTI)
